Sign ordinances baffle Rockford home business owner

Thursday

Oct 17, 2013 at 8:50 PMOct 17, 2013 at 8:50 PM

By Greg StanleyRockford Register Star

ROCKFORD — A few months after he lost his job, Ray Smith put up a sign in his front yard advertising his computer repair business. It’s a side business that Smith has run out of his home on Highcrest Road for about eight years. People call, usually with virus problems, and Smith drives to their house. If he can’t fix the computer there, he brings it home to work on in his office.

The sign is small, about the size of a realty sign, with a clip art picture of a computer, his phone number and the words “Computer Repair.” Smith hoped it would maybe gain him about one new customer a month. At the very least, he wanted to offer a cheap way to advertise his business, which he has relied on more heavily since he was laid off early this year.

Smith didn’t expect to be almost immediately slapped with three ordinance violations from the city and a summons to appear before code enforcers at City Council chambers.

Inspectors threatened Smith with a $750 fine each day the sign was up. He took the sign down immediately and on Thursday, city code enforcers dropped the violations.

But he wants to put the sign back up and doesn’t know exactly how his sign was in violation, when with just a quick drive around town he can find dozens of similar signs for piano lessons, painters or landscapers.

“Jobs are so scarce right now I don’t know why anybody who owns a small business can’t put a sign in their yard,” Smith said. “Especially if you can’t afford advertising.”

Unlike cases of most ordinance violations, which typically involve overgrown weeds or garbage in yards, in Smith’s case the problem wasn’t a lack of care or awareness. He researched the ordinance before he put up the sign and, as far as he could tell, he complied with city rules.

“But not only are the rules confusing, they’re contradictory,” he said.

Smith found the ordinance that declares yard signs cannot have the name of a business or a logo, but must only include a description of services and a phone number.

So that’s what he put on the sign.

But what he didn’t see was the ordinance that rules all signs in front of a home business can print “only the name of the resident and the address.”

Mobile signs are also banned. The city defines mobile as “any sign designed to be moved easily and not permanently affixed to the ground.”

Signs in front of a home business also can’t indicate that there is a business inside the home.

“But nothing about the sign indicates there’s a home business,” Smith said.

Smith didn’t get the chance to argue his case Thursday. As soon as Rockford’s hearing officer learned the sign was down, Smith’s violation was dismissed.

As for if he’ll be able to put the sign back up, there were no answers Thursday at City Hall.

“I don’t get it,” Smith said. “If this is illegal, we need to make it legal,”